Chance for sporting figures to take a bow – or even a brickbat
IT HAS been a turbulent 2020 all round and sport has not escaped the Covid-19 fallout. The Olympics, the Euros, Wimbledon and The Open have all fallen by the wayside. Scroll back to March and the first lockdown when sport was temporarily wiped off the map and it looked for a time as if the highlights reel for the year would equate to Captain Tom Moore clocking up the laps. But gradually live action has returned, albeit in modified form, and brought a familiar rhythm back to unfamiliar times.
The BBC will celebrate the unique year that was at its Sports Personality of the Year show tonight. Here, though, are the alternative awards of 2020:
SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR Jonathan Rea
It had to be a motor sport star. But not that one. Lewis Hamilton was utterly dominant in sealing his fourth Formula One world championship in succession but Rea’s World Superbike crown was his sixth in a row.
The Northern Irishman might not draw the attention that Hamilton does but the 33-year-old, who now has 99 career race wins, is his two-wheeled equivalent.
INTERNATIONAL TEAM OF THE YEAR Scotland
What do you call a Scotsman at a major football tournament? A referee...
Hush now. The gag factory north of the border has shut down after Scotland’s play-off victory over Serbia took them to the Euros. Derby goalkeeper David Marshall ensured himself national hero status after a dramatic penalty shoot-out that ended a 22-year wait for a finals appearance.
The timing is perfect, with Glasgow one of the host cities next summer, so Steve Clarke’s side get to play two home group games. The other one is against England at Wembley.
CLUB TEAM OF THE YEAR Liverpool
There’s simply nowhere else to go other than to a team which at one point during 2020 were English, European and world champions. They currently top the Premier League again.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have accrued more points in the calendar year than anyone else in England, with Manchester City a long way back in
second. Third, incidentally, are Leeds United – just ahead of Manchester United – although the bulk of theirs came in the Championship.
A mention also for rugby union’s Exeter Chiefs, who have somehow turned Devon into a sporting hotbed after their domestic and European double.
COVIDIOT OF THE YEAR Novak Djokovic
A hotly contested category with dishonourable mentions to England’s Reykjavik bubblebursters Phil Foden and Mason Greenwood, as well as Chris Robshaw and his bungling Barbarians but the trophy goes to Djokovic.
The Adria Tour fiasco saw the world’s No1 tennis player, his wife Jelena and his coach Christian Groh all contract coronavirus during a superspreader series in Croatia and Serbia that was the gold standard for how not to stage sporting events during a pandemic.
SOCIAL DISTANCER OF THE YEAR Serpentine
When the 25-1 outsider set off like a train in the Derby, nobody bothered to keep pace. A misjudgment from first-timer Emmet Mcnamara they reckoned.
The misjudgment was theirs. Serpentine won by five-and-a-half lengths.
FAILURE TO READ THE ROOM AWARD Richard Masters
Introducing pay-per-view as thousands were losing their jobs was as crass as it was thoughtless – especially as the Premier League was dragging its feet over a bail-out of the lower leagues at the time. Fan groups rebelled by diverting the money towards food banks instead. A humiliating U-turn followed.
TECH TROUBLE AWARD Gary Anderson
No, not VAR, although it had its moments. Instead Anderson, the two-time world champion, who had to pull out of darts’ innovative lockdown comeback event staged in players’ own homes because of a weak internet connection. There was a happy ending, though, as providers queued up to come to his aid in rural Somerset. With the help of a signal booster box the Flying Scotsman was belatedly able to join the
PDC Home Tour Series.
RISING STAR Tao Geoghegan Hart
After a disastrous Tour de France, the Ineos Grenadiers’ year looked to be in tatters when Geraint Thomas crashed out of the Giro d’italia. But up stepped the unheralded Londoner to rise to the challenge and take the final-day time trial in Milan and the biggest win of his career.
DREAM DOUBLE ACT Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson
Harry Kane and Heung-son Min put up a fight but the oldest swingers in town are still going strong for England.
Anderson reached the milestone of 600 Test wickets against Pakistan while Broad is on 514 after a renaissance summer.
Dropped for the opening Test against the West Indies, Broad showed exactly what he thought about that by ending up player of the series.
RAGS TO RICHES AWARD Sophia Popov
The German qualifier went into the Women’s Open at Troon ranked No304 in the world. She had almost quit golf the previous year having won only £80,000 in six years. Her victory out of nowhere brought a second European win in three years at the championship after Georgia Hall’s 2018 triumph and bolstered Popov’s threadbare bank account to the tune of £500,000.
TEAM-MATE OF THE YEAR Kevin Sinfield
He may not play with Rob Burrow any more but still waters run deep and the Leeds rugby league legend stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his stricken friend in an extraordinary way. Seven marathons in seven successive days raised more than £2.5million for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
QUOTE OF THE YEAR Romain Grosjean
The Frenchman walked away from the horror smash at the Bahrain Grand Prix that saw his Haas torn in half and engulfed in a ball of fire.
This is what he said afterwards: “I see my visor turning all orange, I see the flames on the left side of the car. Sometimes we are close to death, we are a bit scared. This time death for me was here. I named it Benoit, don’t ask me why. I had to give it a name. And then I thought about my kids and I said: ‘No. I cannot
die today’.”